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There is an unstated but deep-rooted assumption in most Christian theology that righteousness is exclusively a moral category. That is, a person is perfectly righteous if they are morally perfect and any degrees of righteousness in a person are in a linear and inextricable relationship to the morality of that individual. This righteousness then becomes the basis of God’s judgement of that person and within this framework it is clear that any acquittal (aka justification) requires adequate moral performance.
Interestingly Catholics and Protestants have historically agreed with this assessment – they have however disagreed on the source and scope of that righteousness in justification. Catholics have said God transfers or implants his own righteousness into believers (Infusion) whilst Protestants have held that God reckons Christ’s perfect obedience unto believers (Imputation). In either case moral righteousness or obedience is the key to justification even if it is received by faith as Catholics and Protestants (now) agree it is. The problem is this: if justification is by grace it must be unmerited and both these models clearly require and account for obedient merit. Read the rest of this entry »
The following question has been crystallising in my mind of late: is righteousness a status God bestows or a property he acknowledges? This, it seems to me, is the issue which divides protestant / catholic belief. Protestants, particularly Reformed Evangelicals hold: not our righteousness is counted but Christ’s (see John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ) because God justifies the ungodly as we read in Romans 4:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Rom 4:5
I would seem that if God calls a sinner a saint, then that is so. The reformed answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma is: Good is what God says is Good. We Christians may be bad people, but we’re good in God’s sight because of faith and that’s what counts. Thus, the flip side of our sins not being counted (forgiveness) is that Jesus life get’s booked to our account.
This conclusion is confirmed each time I read or hear an evangelical teaching. I listened to a preaching today by a good pastor from the south of England regarding Romans 4. His key exegetical points were that Paul is showing:
- You can’t earn entrance into heaven
- If you think you’re good, you’re not
- It is by grace through faith all the way (Eph 2:8)
He illustrated the second point from Luke 18:9-14 where a tax collector beats his breast in repentance after a Pharisee boasts his righteous deeds before God. Jesus says that the tax collector “went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.
This really sums up evangelical thinking: Only God is truly Good and only when he justifies a person are they righteous. God declares someone righteous not because they are in fact righteous but because they have faith. Righteousness is a status bestowed and not a property discovered.
Now, it’s obvious that we all sin and need forgiveness. But is this the model for the Final Judgement? Will we stand before Christ, who will judge our deeds (Mt 24, 2 Cor 10), and, when things look bad, we fall on our knees and plea for mercy? Why can’t non-Christians do this? Or will Christians simply not be present at this horrible Judgement Day?
Many evangelicals have concluded that there is no real judgement for believers (Rom 8:1). There is an Awards Ceremony for Christians and a Terrible Judgement for the rest. Our sins are paid for and ignored because we believed and we’re only here to get awarded for good service by God. Evangelicals say Christians escape judgement and receive forgiven because of faith.
The closest thing I can find in Jesus teaching about this doesn’t quite match. In Matthew 7 Jesus says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” and in Matthew 6:14 “if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you”. Disciples are taught that they escape judgement and receive forgiven because they have forgiven and not judged.
| Forgiven | Not Judged | |
| Reformed Tradition | By Grace Through Faith on the Basis of the Cross | |
| Jesus | By Forgiving Others | By Not Judging Others |
In case it was unclear Jesus re-iterated (Mt 6:15): if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. What does that mean for any evangelicals who don’t forgive but “trust in the Blood”!?
My point is not simply the glaring gap between human tradition and Jesus teaching. Rather it’s that the evangelical teaching is a seemingly arbitrary formal deal (faith for forgiveness) whereas Jesus teaching is a logical real deal (reciprocal forgiveness). Evangelicals think God justifies and forgives on the basis of faith but Jesus teaches forgiveness on the basis of certain “works”. Secular people cannot follow our “justification by faith” doctrine but they really get “do unto others” and expect God to award good behaviour and “forgive us as we forgive others”. Are they seriously misled? I would say they’ve understood the Lord’s teaching better than us.
OK, we can debate about whether forgiveness is a “work” or not but I know that in many evangelical circles forgiveness, a virtue, will be classified as “good works”, as one of those good things we try to do to earn God’s approval. Is that really so bad? My English preacher used Galatians 5 to show that our good works are just like circumcision – they annul Christ’s work.
But Listen to Jesus:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:43-45
The main point of this verse is that God is benevolent towards all humans, good or bad, and so should we be. But the tacit assumptions are revealing and not generally shared by evangelicals:
- Sonship is earned by loving people
- There are just and unjust people
Again, we can debate whether or not “earned” is the right word but I expect love and prayer to be exactly the types of “good works” evangelicals keep telling us won’t get us to heaven. Prayer is typically associated with a religious duty and we know the bad Pharisees made long prayers (Mt 6). Yet here we have Jesus saying: “Do this, so that you will be sons of God”.
Of course sonship is not technically the same as forgiven and justified. Theoretically you could be adopted as a son by God with or without forgiveness and justification. However, biblically, these things go together (John 1:12, 2 Cor 6:18, Mt 6:8) – the justified are God’s family. Evangelicals treat sonship and justification as applying to the same group of people and I concur. But this makes passages such as Mt 5:43-45 above difficult for evangelicals who believe that faith and grace are all that is required. Indeed many of Jesus sayings, particularly Mt 25:31-46 is practically unintelligible for the Sola Fide group.
Think of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). He came home in repentance, pleaing for mercy. His father basically “justified” him by calling him “son” although the man acknowledged he did not deserve it. The father gave the status of sonship at the same time as forgiveness because he repented and pled for salvation (not because of his “faith”). This is Initial Justification, God’s “Welcome Home” to the repentant sinner. This is the topic of Romans 3:21 onwards.
Imagine now the scene many years later when the father stands up to speak of his son. He speaks about the things his son really did, how he helped develop the business, assisted his family, saved that sheep and praised his faithfulness. Perhaps the father will gloss over the failings but he surely won’t praise the son for deeds he never did, imputing righteousness as evangelicals understand it.
I conclude, with N.T. Wright (see Justification) that our present status before God as a result of Initial Justification by Faith is an anticipation of the final judgement where there will be a Justification by Works and that Paul has made this perfectly clear in, the oft neglected, or twisted Romans 2.
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Romans 2:5-13
Faith is so central to Christianity that it deserves a revisiting occasionally to make sure we really understand what Jesus and the authors of the Bible mean that our justification is “by faith” or that we “live by faith”. This is part 2 in an brief investigation into the term “by faith”. In part 1 I looked at the uses and categories of “by faith” and “through faith” particularly in Paul and in Hebrews. Here follow further thoughts on the various meanings of faith as well as a quick look at Jesus’ use and Calvin’s interpretation.
The Four Faiths
We tend to use the word faith as a synonym for “belief”, yet I think we can discern at least 4 different types of faith:
- Faith is often conceived and preached as something you need to do in order to get some benefit (salvation, healing etc). In this sense it is a kind of willed belief.
- We have “faith” which is simply an impression of reality which we did not choose to believe – i.e. basic assumptions or convictions we hold which cannot be empirically verified which we nevertheless find confirmed in life and consistent with living.
- We then have trusting faith which is a decision to trust someone or something. This is different from believing propositions because it involves courage and a choice in trusting a person’s guidance and providence.
- Finally we have faithfulness which, I think unfortunately, is a different word from “faith”. Faithfulness is essentially active loyalty. In respect to authority, faithfulness is essentially obedience.
Which of these faiths is required of us, or present in us, which brings blessing, salvation and all the good stuff promised those “of the faith”? Types 1 and 2 are propositional, types 3 and 4 are inter-personal.
Jesus and Faith
Although the term “by faith” does not occur in the Gospels, Jesus has much to say on the matter of faith. He often expressed his exasperation (“Oh you of little faith…”) at the kind of faith he saw in his people, Israel. The episodes with the Centurion’s servant, the possesed son, or the Mustard Seed and Mountain seem to indicate that a persons ability to believe in something could make it happen and that Jesus was looking for this kind of faith. A faith which was convinced that God could and would do something amazing. Today we would call this “thinking positive“, perhaps embodied in the Gospel in Jesus’ words.
I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mk 11:24)
Paul goes in this direction near the end of Romans 4 where he seems to commend Abraham for believing God can do it as God is the God who calls things which are not as though they were. Now I don’t doubt the psychological effectiveness of positive thought, I just question whether this is the correct basis for justification.
My understanding of Jesus words is that faith is something God plants in you and that this seed develops into real healing, deliverance and rescue. It’s not so much an issue of will power but of bestowed Grace resulting in an impression of reality (Type 2). Perhaps Jesus recognises “their faith” as God’s hand in bringing about healing and is not primarily praising them for willing belief (Type 1).
Josephus and Faith
A good illustration of how faith was understood in the first century comes from the works of Josephus who describes his experiences as a young officer in the army. Wright tells in The Challenge of Jesus p44 of how he came across a passage where Josephus meets a rebel leader in Palestine and calls him to turn from his rebellious ways and trust Josephus for his agenda (Life p22).
The actual Greek phrase used is the same as Jesus’ call to “repent and believe”. This is stunning evidence that Jesus wasn’t simply calling people to “feel remorse and get religious” but to turn their life around and rally around Jesus and his agenda. It’s like a call to get onboard the Jesus Project more than to have a conversion experience. We’ve softened Jesus own words which amounted to treason and were more political than we’ve wanted to hear. Maybe “repent and believe” is better translated “turn and trust and obey me” (Types 3 and 4).
Reformation and Faith
Many Protestants have read Type 1 faith into Paul and come up with the idea that “if you believe (doctrine) you are saved, you will be”. Today I listened to an evangelist and author talk about the “saving knowledge of Christ”. For many, salvation is about epistemology, a hair’s breadth from Gnosticism.
This is particularly clear in our popular translations of Romans:
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood (Rom 3:25)
- OR -
If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved (Rom 10:9-10)
It seems, if we believe in His blood, or in the Atonement our sins are atoned for. Again, if we believe in the Ressurection we will be saved. I have critiqued this view in another post, it seems rather arbitrary and leads to the widespread idea that we need to think certain thoughts to be saved. Indeed I have often heard in Reformation circles that it is passive faith as opposed to active faith which saves. This seems to be Calvin’s perspective:
Now we shall have a proper definition of faith if we say it is a steady and certain knowledge of the Divine benevolence toward us, which being founded upon the truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ is both revealed to our minds and sealed in or hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Calvin, Institutes III.2.vii).
So, according to Calvin, faith is knowledge, it is not an active response, it’s not faithfulness. Whatever flows from this steady knowledge of God’s Grace is therefore a product, something else but not that saving faith by which we are justified.
Faith is the Basis of Salvation
I understand “Justification by Faith” to mean that we are initially justified by or on the basis offaith and that not “alone” but as part of our repentance. This faith is however not simple belief but the proper response to the call of Jesus to “repent and believe”. We thus have repentance + trust in Messiah = justification and the anticipation of salvation. Thus, Type 3 faith (personal trust) leads to initial justification and this is then evidenced by Type 2 faith. This is then worked out in Type 4 faithfulness which is the basis for final justification.
Many Protestants would argue however that it’s Type 1 faith which leads to justification which is then evidenced by works (Type 4). Calvinists specifically would argue it’s Type 2 faith (a gift of God, Eph 2:8) which leads to justification which then leads to works. Both groups would agree that I am wrong and that there is no difference between initial and final justification and that both are based on faith and Christ’s works.
Conclusion
Faith seems to be more complex than I initially imagined. I do so wish Churches would be teaching more discipleship along the lines of Type 4 (faithfulness) for I believe that this would increase the power of our witness to the world (Mt 5:16) and avoid the Gnostic error of salvation by knowledge. Nevertheless books have been written by protestants railing against this view and it’s a popular topic in American radio to take apart the latest sermon no in-line with certain theology. Indeed any preaching which talks about what we need to do and does not exclusively preach what Christ did is condemned as anti-Gospel, anti-Christo-centric and a “false Gospel”. How is Christ going to find any faithful servants when he returns if we fear to live as he did and rest on what he has done for us?
Justification by Faith is perhaps the central tenet of evangelical belief. I’ve previously tried to understand and formulate what Justification is, how it is apart from works and what kind of faith is meant. In this article I want to explore what exactly the phrase “by Faith” means and let the spectrum of meaning come to light which we should be keeping in mind as we read and sometimes gloss over this familiar catchphrase. In particular the questions in my mind are: 1) what does “by” mean and 2) whose faith? Read the rest of this entry »
Amazing Grace how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found,
was blind but now I see.
Grace is indeed amazing because it is God acting to transform humans. Much has been said about the contrast between humans working and God working. Typically Christians would hold that salvation is God’s doing, a free gift we can only receive. This great truth has however sometimes obscured several necessary and active elements of reception namely: repentance, trust and obedience. Read the rest of this entry »
I remember, shortly after conversion, joyfully reading the opening chapters of Romans and thinking “wow, this is amazing, laws are unimportant now, just belief is what counts” – what a relief! I basically read Romans without understanding the context yet latching on to certain phrases as in Romans 3:
20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law;…blah blah bla…a righteousness from God, apart from law, …blah blah bla… 23comes through faith in Jesus…blah blah bla… 24and are justified freely by his grace…blah blah bla…On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
I concluded that Paul was saying that obedience to God’s law(s) was no longer required but just that we have faith (whatever that meant). I was reading the Bible to find out about salvation ignorant of what Paul intended to communicate and which struggle he was combating. Was Paul really fighting “legalistic spirit” in Romans, doing away with obedience and good works, and setting up faith in its place? I no longer think so and have argued elsewhere that we have often misunderstand what “works of the law” and, more especially “faith” mean to Paul. This view is also known as the New Perspective on Paul [1] and is considered by some, to be a mini-Reformation or at least an exciting re-discovery of Pauline Theology. Read the rest of this entry »
Wright’s Understanding of Justification of Faith
Most people understand the Pauline doctrine of “justification by faith” to mean one is justified because of faith in Jesus. Though this is probable, N.T. Wright has argued in his Commentary on Romans (New Interpreters Bible, Vol. X) that “by” does not mean “because of” but “as evidenced by”. One has been justified and this is evident by one’s faith. As Wright is a Calvinist, faith is not something one produces but a gift of God (Eph 2:8) and this surely influence his interpretation.
Wright argues that faith is the true badge of justification (inclusion in God’s family) over and against the badge of circumcision (works of Torah). This is radically different from the common interpretation as the following example demonstrates: Read the rest of this entry »
Ever since I heard Tim Keller explain that the root of all problems is failure to believe the Gospel I’ve been fascinated by discovering just what exactly “The Gospel” is and how it is the “power of salvation”. What fact could there possibly be which, when believed, saves and totally transforms a person? Part of my discovery came from listening to N.T. Wright argue persuasively that the Gospel is, quote, “Jesus is Lord” and that most of what we consider to be Good News is a consequence of this.
In the evangelical world the Gospel is taken to be the radical and indeed life-transforming truth that we are justified by faith alone apart from works. Implicitly or explicitly we are told, works are bad because they insult the work Jesus did. I’ve discussed why I disagree with this view in Which Gospel and my realisation is that this is a shrunken, individualised and subjective good news which encourages passiveness and occludes the royal announcement of Jesus’ Kingship which is for the whole world to hear.
We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Rom 3:28
This verse, for some, stands at the heart of Paul’s letter to the Romans, Pauline Theology, even the Gospel itself. I used to think it meant “we (Christians) get saved because we believe in something (Jesus, the Resurrection, the Gospel) instead of by doing any meritorious works”. Indeed that is how many Gospel presentations run in showing how Christianity is different from all other “striving” religions.
This sounds like Great News, an easier way to heaven, but I’ve been reading and studying Romans in detail and find four mistakes in this interpretation.
